São Paulo – An anthology comprising Arabic translations of books by 12 Brazilian authors will be released next year in the United Arab Emirates. Some of the most respected contemporary writers in Brazil will be included, such as Milton Hatoum and Raduan Nassar (pictured above). The anthology will also feature the work of Maria Valeria Rezende, Marcelo Maluf, Ana Miranda, Youssef Miguel, Salim Miguel, Michel Sleiman, Marco Lucchesi, Luciana Savaget, Whisner Fraga and Socorro Acioli.
The project is from the Revista Pessoa magazine, in partnership with the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce and the Kalima Project for Translation, of the Abu Dhabi Tourism & Culture Authority, designed to increase the availability of Arabic literature worldwide. The collection will be released during the Abu Dhabi International Book Festival next March, according to the anthology’s editor and Revista Pessoa publishing director Mirna Queiroz.
Prose and poetry books are included, but the titles cannot be made public yet because some of the works are still unreleased. The collection is organized by the Brazilian-born Sorbonne University literature professor Leonardo Tonus, and the translators are some of the best in the business in Brazil – Safa Jubran and Mamede Mustafa Jarouche. The anthology will be distributed by the Kalima Project for Translation.
This will be the first translation into Arabic for most of the featured authors. “We have high-level literature that’s world-class, and we must work to publicize it. We need consistent translation work,” says Mirna. Spreading Portuguese-language literature around the world is one of the goals of Revista Pessoa.
Mirna explains that the chance to release the books in Arabic came up after the launch of another foreign-language anthology by Revista Pessoa, at the 2015 Paris Book Fair, which saw Brazil be paid tribute to. A diplomat from the UAE got in touch with Revista Pessoa, and talks led to the partnership with the Kalima Project. Plans include the eventual release of books by Arab writers in Brazil.
According to Mirna, the writers in the anthology are somehow emotionally attached with the Arab world. According to Mirna Queiroz, the idea in including non-Arab authors was to show that Arab influence is Brazil is not merely biological. The collection includes Arab descendants – Maluf, Hatoum, Nassar, Sleiman and Salim Miguel – and otherwise.
Revista Pessoa was launched in 2010 by publishing house Mombak. The Brazilian and Portuguese-language literature magazine had four print issues before going all-digital. It features articles, chronicles and op-ed style texts, mostly covering literature and its intersections with other types of artistic expression. Some of the texts are also uploaded to the Words Without Borders platform.
Revista Pessoa began publishing foreign-language anthologies three years ago – the first one was the French collection at the Paris Book Fair. That same year saw the collection launched in English at the Boston Book Festival. A new bilingual English/Portuguese anthology will come out during the Pessoa Festival to be held by the Magazine in New York next November. The goal is to cater to Portuguese-speaking countries like Mozambique and Portugal, which are also home to expatriate communities and English speakers.
Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
